Purpose
by Amerachan
Summary: His smile was the last thing a lot of people saw before their death, but when he no longer has a reason to kill, what happens to the JupponGatana's most dangerous member, the Tenken sword?


Purpose

"Since you saw me, I'll have to kill you," the man said, raising his katana high above his head.

For just a moment, the boy stared at the police man he had just watched this man kill. He had sliced the man in half; right down the middle, and the officer had let out a piercing scream. The boy looked back to the man, and his eyes traveled up to the sword, all the way to the tip. Fear raced through his body, competing with adrenaline that was building up for him to run. He was terrified. He didn't want to die! Or did he? Confused and afraid, he did the only thing he knew to do with his pain and fear; he smiled. The man stopped a moment, lowering his stance only slightly.

"Do you welcome death?" the man asked.

The only reply the man received was the boy's widening smile, and ironically, a small laugh. The man put down his sword, barely able to contain his smile.

"Fine. I'll let you live as long as you bring me food and bandages."

He did as he was told, hiding the man in one of the storage barns for all the rice that his 'family' grew. The man ate hungrily and wrapped his entire body in the bandages, leaning against a barrel of rice when he was finished.

"What happened to you?" the boy asked.

"I was in the army during the war, and after the fighting was over, they repaid me for my service by trying to burn me to death," the man replied.

"So then you're a good man?" the boy asked.

"No, I'm a bad man. A very bad man."

The boy hid behind one of the barrels ten feet away from the man. He wasn't sure that the man wouldn't kill him now, even though he claimed that he would let him live.

The man then tossed a small sword towards the boy. He only looked at the weapon, and then back to the man in confusion.

"That is a wakizashi. It's yours," the man said.

The boy slowly picked it up and looked at the man again.

"The strong will live, and the weak will die."

"W...Who are you?" the boy asked.

"Shishio Makoto," the man replied with a small smile.

* * *

The boy's life was not a good one. His mother was a courtesan, his father the son of a rice merchant. When his mother gave birth to him, she disappeared. His father, too, leaving him with his family. They saw him as an animal, and treated him as such. Ever since he could work, he did. He did all the chores around the property, being forced to haul the barrels of rice, which were two or three times his size and weight, from one end of the land to the other. He received little nourishment, and his bed was in a barn.

They beat him; whenever he screwed up, or did something wrong or...whenever they really felt like it. The merchant's sons would find reasons to beat him, pushing him down and making him spill the rice or breaking things or hiding the barrels in places so that he couldn't bring it to the storage barn, and get in trouble for, 'trying to make them lose money.'

He was nine years-old now, and he had learned that, when they beat him, crying or begging them to stop did no good; it only egged them on, and he was beaten worse. Soon, he turned to smiling. He hid his tears, his cries, his feelings behind those smiles, and when he showed his childish grin to them whilst they were beating him, they became disgusted and left him alone. Maybe they thought that he was going crazy, that he had taken a masochistic liking to being whipped. It didn't matter, either way. He didn't get punished half as much or with as much ferocity as had been previously the case.

One day as the sun was setting, whilst he was carrying barrels to a storage house, he began to finally think about what the man called Shishio had told him.

_The strong will live and the weak will die, _he thought with a smile. _Then that must mean that I should die, right? I am weak, after all..._

It wasn't long before his 'family' started to suspect that he was hiding Shishio. The man was a criminal wanted by the state, after all, and when description stated that he had burns all over his body, it explained where all the bandages went so quickly.

"All three rolls of bandages are gone..." the merchant's wife commented.

"There's no way we beat that kid enough to force him to use them all," one of the sons postulated, breathing out smoke from his pipe. "So that must mean..."

They were furious that the boy had been hiding the fugitive, and so they resolved to kill him. A storm began to move in, and lightning pierced the night sky, becoming the only source of light. The man called Shishio sat outside of the barn in which he was normally sheltered and smiled as he heard angry cries ring throughout the property.

The boy was terrified, and when they came towards him with swords drawn, he fled. He found himself hiding under one of the storage barns, where he had hidden the sword that the man called Shishio had given him. He gripped the sword and whispered to himself, "Save me Shishio-san. Save me."

"Hey, where'd you find that expensive-looking sword, there?" one of the sons asked suddenly. The boy gasped as he saw the man appear next to him. "Here, let me take a look." the man began to pull the sword from its sheath. The boy let out a scream...

"What a pathetic death cry," the merchant's wife commented.

Before another word could be said, the boy crawled out from under the barn, carrying the sword, the blade dripping with the son's blood. The merchant's wife cried out, and the merchant himself raised his sword against the boy, screaming in rage. The boy screamed in return.

Before he knew what was happening, the boy was surrounded by the bodies of his 'family.' The storm was raging over his head full force now, rain washing the blood away from the blade that he still held tightly in his hand. The man named Shishio stood not more than two metres from him.

"Are you...crying?" he asked.

The boy looked at the sky for a long moment, the rain dripping down his hair and cheeks, mingling with his tears, hiding them. Then he turned towards the man called Shishio and smiled.

"Nope."

Shishio smiled. He turned and walked away, and the boy followed.

"Would you like to come with me?" Shishio asked.

"Ok," the boy replied.

"What's your name?"

"It's Soujiro...Hey Shishio-sama? Do you think I can be strong, too?"

"Yes. You'll be strong. Second only to me."

* * *

"Shut up! Shut up shut up shut up!" Soujiro screamed, slamming his head into the tatami mats upon the floor. Everyone else remained silent, only looking on with either surprise and, in Yumi's case, fear. "That's a lie! The strong will live! The weak will die! That's how it is!"

"That's true," his opponent, Kenshin Himura stated calmly, seemingly unnerved by the nineteen year-old boy's outburst. "But the strong _protect_ the weak."

"No..." Soujiro muttered, shaking his head. "No, that's not true."

"It _is_ true."

"No!" Soujiro raised his head to glare at the man on the opposite side of the room, already covered in bandages from previous fights. "If that's true, then why weren't you there for me? Why didn't you protect me!"

Kenshin gasped, his eyes widening slightly. He wanted to go over to the boy and attempt to comfort him, but he knew he was likely to get cut if he did.

"Soujiro, I don't know what happened to you, but I'm sorry that I wasn't able to protect you."

"Shut up! Just shut the hell up! I don't want to hear it! I..."

Not even his best attack, the Shuntensatsu, coupled with his Shukuchi; the skill which provided him with unmatched speed, could defeat Himura's Amakakaru Ryu No Hirameki. Soujiro saw the secret behind Himura's attack, but was unable to react to prevent his defeat.

When Yumi left to bring Himura and his friend to Shishio-sama, he knew that he would never see either Yumi or Shishio-sama again. He stood and walked from the mansion, the smile still painted onto his face. Inside of him, turmoil was wreaking hell on his soul. Who was right? Was Shishio-sama correct? Was it really the strong who lived and the weak who died? Or was Himura-san the right one, to say that the strong protected the weak? Or perhaps they were both wrong?

Himura-san had told him to find his own path, and that was what he would do...

* * *

"Excuse me, could I get another cup of tea, please?" Soujiro asked politely, raising his hand to a waitress to call her over.

"Yes, of course, Sir," the young waitress said, rushing over another cup.

"Thank you." He held his smile and drank from the cup and leaned back on the bench upon which he was seated. He pulled out a little bag and emptied its contents into his hand. He would have just enough money to pay for the meal, but if he didn't find more money today, he would have to sleep outside. That would be a problem, since it looked and smelled as though it would rain later on, despite the cheery sun that reigned over the land for the time being.

He rose and paid for his lunch and walked on down the road, a smile still painted on his face. Looking ahead, he could see the city of Tokyo, gleaming with the heat of the afternoon summer sun. He halted for a moment and his smiled faded for but a second before he shrugged and continued on.

Nearing the city, he spotted the person he anticipated he would see upon arriving into Tokyo. A short man with long, red hair sat by the river that ran under a bridge, a stick with string tied to it in his hands. Next to him, on a long cloth, lay four fish, still desperately gasping for air. Soujiro's smile faded again and his dark bangs hung over his eyes, obscuring them from the sun. He walked slowly behind the person, so that he was about two feet behind them and then, his smile returning, said;

"You're a very good fisherman, Himura-san. But if you leave them out too long, they very well may spoil."

He watched carefully as Himura tensed at the sound of his voice for only a moment, and then relaxed with a quiet sigh. He could almost hear as Himura forced a smile onto his face, which he turned to the young man standing behind him.

"True, true, but I am almost finished, that I am, so I will be returning soon to Kaoru-dono's, where I will prepare them, so they really won't be out for long at all, that they won't."

Soujiro studied his face for a long moment. It clearly said that, while Himura-san was trying to be polite, and really wanted to believe that the boy had no other motive to be in Tokyo other than passing through on his journey, he was apprehensive and ready to draw his sword if the need absolutely arose. Soujiro's smile widened.

"I see. Well, I'm sorry to have disturbed you then. I'll be on my way, Himura-san," he said with a small bow as he turned to leave.

"Why don't you spend the night with us?" Himura asked suddenly. "After all, it's late afternoon, and you won't find many odd jobs to do now that would make you enough money to stay at an inn."

Soujiro stopped, but did not face Himura. He decided that he would wait for the short, red-haired man to speak again.

"I am well aware that you haven't any money with you, Seta Soujiro. Money tends to make a certain jingle in one's pocket, after all."

He turned and faced the man who was once his strongest adversary and continued his smile. "I would love you stay with you tonight, Himura-san. Thank you for the offer."

Himura's smile became genuine then, and at that same moment, his line was pulled. He whipped it upwards with astonishing speed and the fish flew into the air. He then watched it carefully as it fell towards the ground and raised his hand to catch it, but his grasp was about a decimetre off, and the fish fell between his fingers. The elder man gasped an 'oops!' but the fish did not land on the ground. Instead, it was caught in the nimble and delicate fingers of nineteen year-old Soujiro Seta, who stood with the writhing fish not seventy centimetres away from Himura. The elder man stared at the dark haired boy for a long moment before taking the fish and smiling.

"Thank you. Now we have just enough fish to allow one per person."

Later that night, after everyone had eaten and retired for the night, Soujiro sat on the porch facing the garden of the Kamiya dojo. His instincts had failed him; there was no rain that night, and the moon shone brilliantly upon the land, floating not on a sea of clouds, but on an ocean of black. The young man stared up at the sky, watching as the stars twinkled now and again as though competing with one another to be the brightest, and to be acknowledged by the world below them as the best and brightest star in the sky. A small sigh escaped him, and finally, his smile faded away completely. He hung his head and closed his weary dark eyes. Suddenly, there was a sound behind him, and he tensed.

"Shouldn't you be sleeping?" Himura's voice said next to him as he sat down next to the young man. "After all, as a traveler, you must have walked for several days before arriving here, and with no sleep, so you must be exhausted."

Soujiro rejuvenated his smile and turned it to Himura as he spoke. "I'm ok. Besides, I really don't feel like sleeping right now. It's really nice outside, too, so I thought I'd just relax out here for a little while."

Kenshin nodded and was silent for a long moment. He turned his eyes to the sky and held them there for what seemed like hours. "You know, you don't have to smile if you don't really feel it," he said at last.

Soujiro stared at him for a long moment, his smile having disappeared when Himura's words first began to form his sentence. Then he stared at the sky as well, a small, distant smile creeping back onto his lips. "I know that. But it's the only way I know how to deal with things. A long time ago, I stopped crying and showing my fear or pain, because it didn't do anything for me. They just beat me more, saying that I was a crybaby and to 'take it like a man.' And so... I only smiled. They stopped when I did, thinking I enjoyed it or something. Who knows what they thought? But it doesn't matter anyways. They stopped beating me when I smiled, and so that was what I learned to do.

"Even after I killed them, I still kept smiling, because I didn't know anything; I didn't know if I had done the right thing, or if I was right to follow Shishio-sama. The point is, when I smile, everyone just thinks I'm happy, and can't read my emotions and play on them. They can't find a weakness in me if all they see is a joyful grin. And so you see, Himura-san," Soujiro now turned his smile to the elder man, who was staring at him intently. "I am fully aware that I don't have to smile if I don't mean it, but it's all I know how to do. Please forgive me."

Himura shook his head with a small smile of his own, and then opened his eyes again to the boy.

"There is nothing you need to beg forgiveness for here, Soujiro. If that is your nature, then so be it. No one is blaming you for it, or mad at you for it. I'm merely saying that if you don't _want_ to smile, then you don't _have_ to. However, if you feel no need to change your habits and are happy with the way you are, then stay that way."

Soujiro watched the man for a long time as he spoke, and without his knowledge, the smile had given way to an attentive and serious look. After Himura had finished speaking, he blinked and smiled again, turning his gaze back to the sky, saying nothing.

Silence crept up on them and hovered over them for a long time as they both watched the stars.

"So, why did you disappear?" Himura asked at last. "After Shishio was defeated, I mean."

"You told me to find my own answer, so I did." Himura looked at him, his eyes widening, but Soujiro did not meet his diverted gaze. His dark eyes were kept upon the stars, and he watched with serenity as one shot across the sky. "I decided that I didn't know which of you was right, and so I took your advice and became a _rurouni_, a wanderer, to find my own answer to my questions. I may not find those answers, but at least I know that I didn't rely on someone to give them to me, even if they _are_ right. Now, I'll find everything out everything I want to know, my own way, by experiencing everything, and making my own decisions and interpretations."

The elder man stared at Soujiro for a long time, and at long last, smiled as he turned his gaze back to the stars just as another one shot past them.

"Good. I'm glad you'll find your own path. And whether or not you find your answers, you're welcome here anytime."

Soujiro nodded and watched as more and more stars dashed across the sky, as though in a race with one another. He had found one answer, just now. He knew that his search gave him purpose.


End file.
